Decisions, decisions...

photo credit: AntoineMeu via photopin cc


Yesterday at the job centre, and also on previous occasions when speaking  with advisers, I have mentioned that since people are going to be working well into their mid sixties and even later due to pension changes, and factors such as spells of unemployment meaning that they have to work later to build up a financial safety net, the job centres should have specialist advisers for older people, in the same way as they have disability advisers.since they will be signing enough of them for Job seekers allowance. Yesterday, the adviser I  saw agreed it was a good idea since she herself was increasingly experiencing signing claimants who were  not far off 67 years old and having to look for work.Another adviser remembers the days when they did indeed have such specialist advisers at the job centres..but those days are long  gone....

Perhaps the government and department of work and pensions, did not see ahead to the situation they would create, when although some do indeed choose to work longer, many are forced into it and desperate to get unavailable and non existent job openings, at best rarely available for older job seekers, due to situations such as the increasingly familiar losing sickness and disability benefits. Much has been heard and much has been done, although many claim not enough to help young people into work, there are plenty of work and training schemes for them, although how many translate into jobs is of variable opinion, however from my experience job centre advisers seem unprepared for the challenges of helping people who once would have been pensioners into jobs, and what is more..jobs that physically they can do.

This point of the need for jobs that older people can do if they are going to be forced to work is very valid. I am 53, with significant health conditions, including a heart problem, hypertension, arthritis, a severe vitamin deficiency affecting my bones and a tendency to fractures,  and partial sight., in icy winter weather I am housebound....but being forced to claim Job seekers allowance.  The very fact that I am writing this blog shows that I can do something....write. However, at the moment any money the blog earns I have to declare, since my only regular income is Job seekers allowance, and all I get to keep is £5 . I cannot yet afford to give up the Job seekers allowance and so must meet the Job seekers agreement and apply for jobs. I have repeatedly asked for help to become self employed, but this is treated as if I am really using it as an excuse to not have to go to work. One adviser told me 'You are on Job seekers allowance, and you have to do as you are told:'....look for a job .One thing we know I cannot do is the one job that I still frequently get offered, even though I have not done it for over ten years and do all I can to have my CV show my transferable skills is nursery nursing.

When I was  still working, my nursery colleagues and I used to often discuss the implications of the picture that sprung to mind of nursery nurses on zimmer frames. Something the government forgot when raising the pension age was the issue of the huge numbers of women who would be affected by these changes since it is largely  women who are in the care professions and may not be fit enough to continue to do the only job they have ever done...and they have few if any current transferable skills. You cannot quickly turn a nursery nurse into  a secretary at threat of sanctioning her benefits because she is taking too long to get a job.

Decisions, decisions, many older people find themselves at a crossroads. Do they as one in his time quite famous politician Norman Tebbit  said 'get on your bike to find work' after all The former Conservative minister repeated advice he gave 30 years ago saying people in the UK should follow the examples of Poland, Hungary and Lithuania.   He clearly now aged over 80, still has some considerable influence on his successors in the coalition.. However, should people in what forced to work or not is later life when people can become more vulnerable, be forced to move away from areas they know and may have connections and family...

What about the options of trying to become self employed ? Well, as many of my readers know I have repeatedly asked the Job centre for help with this, as it seems the ideal solution for me. One adviser admitted that they have to say there is money and help to do so because the government have for so long claimed that there is such help, but the reality is that the money is held by private providers..who do not want to pay it out.Also, unless you have your own skills and talents that you can use to make money and therefore know that you can get paid for what you do or make, do you run the risk of the self employed scams, companies who CLAIM their employees are self-employed but who in reality are not.
Labour's John Cryer described it as "a fairly straightforward sort of scam" that was rife in construction and "spreading to other industries" such as hospitality, catering and retail.

Decisions, decisions... as we know it is difficult but far from impossible to find a job when you are over 50, or indeed just 'older' but there is a wealth of help and advice and the opportunity for mutual support out there on the web.....my advice would be to research, research, research and if indeed you have skills  or hobbies which you can use to freelance and earn some money  then give it a go .